Venture capitalists plowed money into A.I. start-ups like OpenAI and Anthropic. But the rise of the Chinese A.I. start-up DeepSeek has called that funding frenzy into question.

The fast-growing popularity of the Chinese artificial intelligence software hit shares in tech giants like Nvidia, as Silicon Valley worried about what comes next.

The financing efforts follow new funding rounds by Elon Musk’s xAI and the market leader, OpenAI, which is now valued at $157 billion.

Amazon, Advanced Micro Devices and several start-ups are beginning to offer credible alternatives to Nvidia’s chips, especially for a phase of A.I. development known as “inferencing.”

© Spencer Lowell for The New York Times